When the truth is your greatest danger, and the enemy knows the truth, things can only go downhill when the enemy finally gets the proof.And that's the proof the Hashashin get when they steal what the Vatican doesn't even know it has. Now the infallible decrees of two Twelfth Century popes and three kings, stolen by the Hashashin, threaten to catapult the bigotry, bias, and religious blood baths of the Third Crusade straight into the Twenty-First Century.

When Templars Sean Callahan and Marie Curtis are drawn into the mess, they face an ancient enemy that has already nearly won the battle. A newly elected Mexican pope being undermined by entrenched Vatican powers, world class scholars who will sell their prestige to the highest bidder, and terrorists lingering over nutmeg lattes in sidewalk cafes.

Moving from Rome to London, Switzerland, and Saudi Arabia, Callahan and Curtis are desperate to find some way to stem the success the Hashashin are having enlisting the majority of moderate Muslims in their Jihad. Out maneuvered at each step by the Hashashin, only a last ditch roll of the dice has any chance of success. But it's the only chance they have.

Amazon Reviews:

Review 1: The story explodes early on and the action and intrigue never lets up. Continuously entertains, educates and keeps one guessing. Well drawn, interesting and varied characters; crisp dialog. The most interesting character enters after the half way point, the new Pope from Mexico, Pedro Sanchez; he is unaffected by his new status, blunt, clever, insightful and fully willing to challenge papal doctrine for the truth. Could hardly put it down for 2 days. Highly recommended.

Review 2: If you like Vince Flynn, Jack DuBrul, Brad Thor, Dan Brown and similar authors you are going to love this new author. I started reading this book on a Saturday morning and couldn't stop reading until I finished it. The book is nonstop action with exciting plots, intrigue where the stakes are high, a driven hero named Callahan, who is my new favorite character, and an ending that will leave you begging for his next book. This is an exciting and satisfying read and I highly recommend it.

Review 3: It is definitely of the caliber of the DaVinci Code and its progeny. I have really enjoyed reading it.

Author Bio:

Terrence O'Brien

After leaving the Marine Corps I began a career in mine and oil field development.I have followed the oil fields spanning Alaska, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia, and now live with my wife in Kansas City where I became a floor trader at the Kansas City Board of Trade. I'm currently working on Avram's Cross, the second book in the series.

Book Excerpt:

Zurich - Friday, March 27

The Templar Master’s phone rang late at his house on Lake Zurich. “Well, are you going to ask me?”

“Ask you what, Patrick?” sighed the Master. What did the Archivist want now?

“Aren’t you going to ask me how the thieving crooks knew the treaty was just sitting there begging to be stolen?”

The Master confronted his own stupidity. How, indeed, did they know?

“Marie pretty much nailed it. She found entries for the thing in the Vatican Library. She gave us some index numbers and we narrowed our search.”

Silence. “And what did you find Patrick?”

“It’s on the damn internet. A compendium of inter-library listings of new additions to about five hundred major research libraries. Page after page, indexed and sorted by library, department, bla bla bla.”

“What’s it say?”

“Say? It says Treaty of Tuscany, 1189, Vatican Library. Evaluation. Some temporary catalog numbers. It’s a few lines of text hidden in a thousand pages. A needle in a hay stack.”

“Who gets the list?”

“Who gets it? Who do you think get it? Libraries. Universities. That’s why I get it. Some Vatican idiot listed it without knowing what it was. Probably don’t even know they did it. For all I know, the computers did it all by themselves. That’s an option on their system.”

“Is the entry still on the internet?” asked the Master.

“Good God, no. We got the computer whiz kids over in your cellar to hack the hosting computers and erase it. No point letting anyone else know what we know. Knowledge is power.”

“OK, Patrick, if you dig up anything else let me know.”

“Let you know? You bony French toad! Open your eyes, man. Think.”

The Master owed the old Archivist a lot, but there was a time to draw the line. “Patrick, either get to the point or I’m hanging up the phone.”

“Hang up? Hang up at your own peril. Has it occurred to you that someone had to know about the treaty before that line in the index could even have any meaning to them? They had to know enough to realize it was worth stealing? Know what it said?”

The Archivist stopped to let his words sink in, then softly said, “And just who might have been around long enough to know that? Just who might have mention of it in their own archives? And just who might love to get their diseased claws on it? Just who might that be?”

Hashashin. The Master wondered if he or the Irishman should be Grand Master. He sure hadn’t been thinking clearly.

The Archivist had the knife in and couldn’t resist a twist. “So, now I’ll leave you to think your great strategic thoughts, with the ancient foe so far ahead of us, planning God knows what mischief. And, you know, you’re supposed to be the brains of this outfit… and none of you thought to ask the simple questions… mental midgets all of you… brains like BBs in a boxcar…see, I’m still pulling your chestnuts out of the fire…heaven help us… not like the old days, no, not at all… have to get me little knives out before...”

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